


Наталия

by imposterhuman



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Character Study, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Names, Natasha Romanov Feels, Natasha Romanov Has Issues, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, POV Natasha Romanov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 08:12:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19849123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imposterhuman/pseuds/imposterhuman
Summary: Natalia Alianovna Romanova is a dead girl's name.





	Наталия

**Author's Note:**

> title: "natalia" in cyrillic (creative i know)
> 
> clearing out my google docs and found this bit of angst, so here yall go
> 
> enjoy what happened when i learned about the russian diminutive and got Feels

Natalia Alianovna Romanova is a dead girl’s name. 

Natalia dies in the Red Room. The Black Widow is born.

Natalia dies screaming. Quickly, the Black Widow learns not to scream.

She learns other things, too. How to dance, how to speak, how to kill. She is the prettiest ballerina in the Red Room- and the deadliest. She stands alone at the end, soaked in the blood of a girl she might’ve called  _ sister  _ once, and accepts her place. 

The Black Widow is as dangerous as her namesake. She is credited with hundreds of kills, with the toppling of regimes, all done with a merciless half-smile. She is a whisper in the ears of those who have reason to fear her, a ghost in their room when she finally arrives. 

She is called many things: devil, witch, shadow- all false. She is the Black Widow. She makes sure her targets know that as they die.

(There are attempts, she knows, to learn her name. But the Black Widow has no name and she cuts down all those who dare try to find one.)

Those who seek her out, who try their luck against the only survivor of the Red Room, are either stupid or insane. For this man, the Black Widow thinks it may be both. 

The archer finds her after a successful assassination, a political leader whose death will let her handlers gain a foothold in his country. He has been trailing her all night, she knows (she almost hadn’t noticed. She will not make the mistake of showing him her back again). 

He is standing in the alley behind the hotel, the streetlamp like a spotlight. He is almost beautiful, she thinks, in the way of deadly things. But she is always more beautiful, always more deadly. She tells herself that she will feel no remorse as she kills him. 

He doesn’t startle when she steps into the halo of light, deceptively slow. Instead, he smirks at her, waving a greeting. 

“Natalia Romanova,” the archer says, twirling an arrow. His American accent warps the Russian syllables, making them alien (well, more alien. It has been a lifetime since she heard that name in anywhere but the back of her mind). “I was sent to take you out.”

“That’s not my name,” she hisses and throws herself forward. The Black Widow will not die quietly. 

The archer dodges her knife strike, catching it on the shaft of his arrow. She stays close, not letting him get far enough away to use his bow, where he will have the advantage. 

“What’s your name, then?” he is still smirking. The Black Widow considers cutting his lips off. She settles for a kick to his stomach, propelling him backwards a foot. 

She closes the distance. “I am the Black Widow,” she says, moving to cut his throat. “I am nameless.” There is something in his eyes, then, something that speaks of understanding, not pity. She hates it. She would gouge his eyes out in a heartbeat if he would stop looking at her like that.

“No one is nameless,” he says. His moves are fluid as he fights her. He is skilled, she notes. Not like her, but not too far off. “So what’s your name?”

“I am nameless,” she repeats, teeth gritted. He lands a lucky strike. She hits back harder.

“You don’t have to be,” he grabs her wrist with something that feels like gentleness, not that she would know. “I was sent to kill you. Let me make a different call.”

“Does that line normally work for you?” she snorts a laugh, putting her knife away. She can kill him just as easily without it, and she knows he knows it.

The archer shrugs. “Never tried it before,” he says lightly. “Is it working?”

The Black Widow is tired. She’d never admit it, but she has grown something akin to a conscience. There is no room for a conscience in the Red Room. If Natalia were still alive, the Black Widow knows what she would do. It is her memory that curls the Black Widow’s mouth into a small smile. 

“Maybe,” she says coyly. If he betrays her, she can always kill him later. A Widow is no less dangerous for being sweet and silent.

“What’s your name?” he repeats.

The Black Widow thinks for a moment. She is no longer Natalia, no longer the child she was born. She tastes a name on her tongue, a nickname she was never allowed to have. There were, after all, no friends in the Red Room. 

“Natasha,” she decides. The diminutive of a name she will never again claim, what a parent or a friend might have called her, once upon a time. “My name is Natasha.”

(Natasha Romanoff is a dead woman’s name, too. 

Natasha dies on Vormir. The universe is saved. 

She smiles on the way down. It is a good death.)

**Author's Note:**

> thoughts?
> 
> comments and kudos make my day!!
> 
> hit me up on tumblr @imposter-human


End file.
